Lately I've been thinking about the way I talk to myself. It's not great, I gotta say. On the whole I think I'm a good person. Kind, loyal, can look nice when I put some effort into it. I have good self-esteem overall. But there's this voice. This little nagging voice. And we all have it. The one that creeps up our back and peers over our shoulder as we look in the mirror. The one that talks in our ear when we walk into a room full of people we don't know. The one that does a song and dance in our stomachs when we have to stand up and talk. The one who predicts failure before we even begin a task.

I hate that one. It's so mean to me that I wish I could just silence it never to hinder me again. Never to make me self-conscious or fill me with self-doubt. I wish it was a tangible thing I could just cast off and unburden myself with. Because it's spiteful and hateful and vindictive and insulting and I am its primary target. It's me. The other part of me. And I'm so over it. So ready to be done with it. I don't need something talking to me that way. I'm better than that and worth more I sometimes think I am.

So let me ask you this for Talk to Me Tuesday... do you have that voice? Do you know it's just you? And how long would you keep a friend you talked to you the way you talk to yourself? I've kept mine for 32 years... and I think it's time to let her go.

Hamlet's Mistress

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

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comments:

The more I read, the more I think we share a brain (and for that, I'm SO sorry! ;) ).

Yes, I have that voice. Mine doesn't only say mean, hateful, spiteful things that I would never DREAM of saying to a loved one, but also fills my head with doubts about things/people that I know to be untrue.

Most of the time, I can shut it up (I'm trying the whole "STOP IT!" thing - we'll see how that goes), but if I'm not in a good place emotionally and/or mentally, that voice can run roughshod ALL over me. And you're right: I most certainly wouldn't keep a "friend" around who spoke to me that way, so I shouldn't allow myself to speak to me that way.

Every time I sit down to write, that soft, sweet voice whispers all through my brain, "Who are you kidding? Your words are small and insignificant. No one will listen."

I try to fool that voice, fool myself into thinking it isn't there. I listen more deeply to my husband, my biggest supporter, who wants me to write full time so that I can support him in the manner in which he wants to be accustomed.

And then there's that damned voice again whose seductive tone is like warm butter on top of hot pancakes oozing delicious doubt from my brain all the way to my toes.